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I like to mix my infusions with at least 3/4 nettle and 1/4 oat straw. You are not supposed to do that but I know how each herb affects my body individually and I feel like I benefit from blending them. I don't mind nettle on its own but sometimes it can be too rich, and oat straw helps with that. Lately, I started adding lemon balm to this and it tastes great, even better with honey. I got the idea from Rosemary Gladstar.

Mmmmm.... As RoseRed noted - when you body needs a particular infusion, I find myself craving it, and the flavor. The lemon balm sounds rather tasty. I've not tried that as an additional flavor to an infusion.I don know that with tea, when I want more than plain tea, the only thing I tend to add is either honey or agave nectar.

If you try to grow your own lemon balm - it really does need full sun or it gets all leggy and spindly and sad.

The other thing with nettle infusion is the quality. If it brews up a brilliant emerald green - you've got gold. If it brews up brown like regular tea - it's not a great quality and the flavor does suffer for it.

I grow my own Lemon Balm,and it is all quite beautiful. A lovely gypsy plant that is quite clever and will become quickly feral before you know it. Another thing I do is steep the nettle for no more than four hours. Eight hours is a bit overkill for nettle, in my opinion, especially mail-ordered nettle.

I agree. Brown nettle = bleck. The Nettle I harvest from the local creek sides is far superior in flavor to that which I order, but I haven't yet mastered the trick of harvesting enough to make infusions through all the off seasons!!

When I am craving nettle, it does taste a lot better. But I don't necessarily think I don't need it when I'm not craving it. When I'm craving nettle, I'm usually deficient in minerals and also start craving salt. I try not to wait until I'm deficient to drink it, but it doesn't always turn out that way. I'm getting a lot better at switching up my infusions through out the week. For several years, it was just nettle, and I really think I needed it that much. I used to add Fremonita leaves to it, a local species of Malvaceae, which added a subtle sweetness and much needed mucilage. That idea I got from Kiva Rose. I'm pregnant right now and nothing tastes right, but I'm still drinking the nettle because I feel much better the next day than I would if I skipped it.

I put my lemon balm in a large pot because I didn't want it taking over. I had it in the back but it's a wooded, shaded property. I moved it up front into direct sun and she's much happier now and all those spindly spots are filling in.

I'm not sure if I should bring it in in the winter. It doesn't get super cold here.

Any of the supply houses (Jeans Greens in Maine, Mountain Rose in Oregon, I think or Pacific Botanicals - those are the main 3 that I use) will send you a sample if you call and ask before you order it by the pound. I did that once. 3 POUNDS of bad nettle - and all 3 supply houses had the same nettle. MR used to cut their own leaf and stem and that was a supriringly good quality. I actually liked it with more than just the leaves - it was a little milder but still really good.

Any ideas on what to do with the left over nettle that I just couldn't drink?

I've been told by a few people that harvest their own that when they find a nice stand they take the top 3rd of the plant and continue to harvest all season. Something about the younger top growth doesn't have the time to form the crystals. I don't remember exactly.